Growing Pains 3 Happy Birthday Jon O'Neill
by wren10514
Summary: It's Jon's birthday and he's not feeling too good.


Usual disclaimers etc

AN: At the moment I have no more plans for these SG1/btvs ones, but if anyone has any ideas they'd like me to write in this verse I'd love to hear them. I love Jon and Dawn *squishes*

----x----

Jon opened his eyes a crack and winced at the soft light coming through his curtains. The clock said he'd been asleep almost eleven hours, but it felt like he'd only just closed his eyes. He thought about going back to sleep but he was thirsty and his bladder was telling him it needed attention too, and yet it took a while till he could persuade himself to get out of bed.

_Must be coming down with something_, he thought as he stepped into the shower to try and wash away some of the cobwebs.

He felt better after the shower, better still after some food, but despite the exciting day of homework and training he had planned he couldn't seem to get going.

He'd been sat in front of the TV watching mindless Saturday afternoon TV for hours when the knock at the door came and just barely managed to prise himself out of the dent he'd made in the sofa to answer it.

"Surprise!"

"What the...?"

Dawn and Cassie held out a cake with a lone candle in the top while Neil and Oz grinned and waited for his response.

"Uh, sorry to disappoint, but it's not my birthday."

Dawn snorted and pushed past him into his flat, taking the cake with her. He ushered the other's inside while Cassie explained.

"It's not Jack's birthday, but we thought we could celebrate the day you were...Created."

Neil slapped him on the back. "Happy first birthday Colonel!"

"Ah!" Jon held up a warning finger. "What did I say about calling me that? Even in private."

Neil rolled his eyes and dumped the bag he had been carrying on the counter. Dawn, her burden of cake laid on the same counter wandered around his apartment nodding to herself.

"Nice place," she said and though Jon tried to hear any sarcasm in her voice he couldn't detect any. She zoned in on his one and only photograph. "Who's this?"

"My son Charlie," Jon said and fetched plates and forks for the cake. "He would have been about your age."

The implications of that sunk into the group and everyone went quiet. Jon dipped his finger in the frosting.

"Hey!" Cassie yelled, batting his hand away. "Let us cut it first."

Jon smirked. "As long as you don't sing 'Happy Birthday'" He went to a nearby drawer and threw a box of matches at Neil, who fumbled, but eventually caught them. "But I want my wish." He went to the fridge next. "Oz: beer?"

"Sure."

Jon picked out two and passed one to Oz.

"Me too," Neil said.

Jon raised an eyebrow and slammed the fridge shut. "Not a chance." He took a slug of his drink.

"Why not? We're the same age!" Neil said, a whine to his voice as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

He ruffled Neil's hair in a way he knew the boy hated. "Nice try kid."

Cassie took the matches and lit the candle. "Happy B-"

Jon blew the candle out quickly.

Cassie and Dawn pouted. "Spoil sport."

Jon cut the cake, making sure to make his wish and give himself an extra big slice. "So what else have you got there?" He nodded towards the bags Oz and Neil had brought in.

Dawn bounced as she ate her cake. He'd never known anyone react to sugar so quickly. "Some dvds, popcorn, ice cream and steaks."

"Steaks?"

Cassie had her eyes closed as she enjoyed her cake. "Oz's idea."

Jon nodded at Oz. "Good idea."

The whirlwind of activity had buoyed him up, but suddenly Jon felt ready to drop and sat down heavily on the couch. He couldn't seem to get enough air and coughed to try and clear his chest a bit.

"Jon? Are you ok?" Cassie asked and sat down next to him. She reached out to rest her hand against his forehead in a gesture that was reminiscent enough of Dr Fraiser to make him smile.

He smiled for her. "I'm fine. I think I'm coming down with something. Probably just a cold."

Dawn, still bouncing on the balls of her feet, punched the air. "Never fear! We'll take care of everything - right?!"

There was a chorus of "Right!" from the others and Jon sat back to watch them help themselves to his kitchen, calling out when they needed to know where something was or how to work his grill. It was surprisingly comforting to have friends working in his place, easy banter passing between them. They teased him for only being a year old and he teased them for being children compared to his fifty or so years of memories and more relieved than he thought he would be to be able to talk to friends without worrying about betraying who he was. Oh sure, there was still a lot of Jack's life that was classified, but at least he could tell the truth about himself.

And he wasn't the only one. Dawn quizzed Cassie about her explodey powers and Oz didn't try to hide that all he needed was his nose to be able to tell when the steaks were done to perfection. Dawn and Oz had brought a new book filled with demon gobbledegook for Neil to absorb himself in and he often threw out words for someone to clarify for him. All of them answered him at some point, even Cassie for one, which surprised Jon. He would have asked her when she learned it, but Cassie's origins were one of the few things they had managed to keep classified since meeting Dawn.

Jon got the chance to ask Dawn and Oz about the Hellmouth, the Watcher's Council and heard for the first time about big sister Buffy, the vampire slayer. He still found it hard to believe what they told him about magic and demons, but when you were a clone sat in a room with a werewolf and a girl who could make things explode with her mind it seemed churlish not to give them the benefit of the doubt.

It was fun, the steaks were fantastic (who knew werewolves would be good cooks) and it was over too soon. Still, Jon said goodbye to them all late that evening with a smile on his face, and for once he didn't just feel like Jack's shadow. He stayed up late, not wanting to lose this feeling they had given him.

He paid for it the next morning. Whatever he was coming down with didn't seem to appreciate the fun or the late night and he could barely lift his head off his pillow Sunday morning. He decided not to fight it: a day in pyjamas had never hurt anyone and he settled down with hot chocolate, left over birthday cake and all six Star Wars films to keep him company.

The day of rest seemed to work and by the time he was getting ready for school Monday morning he felt almost human. His lungs still felt heavy and he forgoed his normal morning training given how limp he felt, but another couple of days taking it slow and he'd be back to his normal self.

He smiled and waved to a number of people as he parked up and walked in to school. He really had carved out a place for himself here. He chatted to Neil about the homework by their lockers as they grabbed their stuff for class and almost felt like a teenager. Even Bobby's muttered "Happy Birthday" as he walked past made him feel good.

By the end of his first class his body was telling him to rethink that. His limbs felt like lead, and his head swam. He grabbed a coffee from the vending machine between classes, but it didn't seem to help. He could barely keep his eyes open in latin and in a class that small it got noticed.

"Jon?" Ms Bell said from above him. He hadn't even noticed her coming up to his desk. "Are you alright?"

He tried to smile, but felt it fall short. "Fighting something off. I'll be fine."

She didn't look convinced. In fact she looked downright worried. That wasn't good.

"Maybe you should go to the nurse's office. Do you need someone to take you?"

Jon grabbed his books and felt his head spin. Maybe the nurse's office wasn't such a bad idea. He picked up his bag and went to stand up. "I'll be fine..."

The world slanted sideways and his legs gave way underneath him. He felt hands on his arms, on his back, people lowering him into a chair in an all too familiar sensation. He tried to take a deep breath and couldn't. Coughed, the grey he hadn't noticed at the edges of his vision rushed inwards. He looked up into Dawn's concerned face.

"Janet. Talk to Cassie."

And then there was just black.

----x----

Dawn pounded down the corridors, heedless of the looks she drew from the few people she passed. Cassandra was in bio, she was pretty sure. 80 percent sure. Either way, that was where she was headed. She crashed through the door without knocking and panted while the teacher chewed her out for her behaviour, manners and just about anything else.

"Sorry, sir," she interrupted. "It's an emergency. Cassandra Fraiser is needed in the nurse's office."

Cassandra was already grabbing her books while the teacher continued his diatribe about there being no need for these kind of theatrics. Dawn thought there was pretty good reason for them given that Jon had just passed out in the middle of class, was barely breathing and there was an ambulance on the way, but she just said "thank you sir," as Cassandra got to the door and shut it on his speech.

"What's wrong?" Cassandra asked as they hurried to the nurse's office.

Dawn was still panting, but didn't slow down as she spoke. "Jon collapsed, passed out in the middle of latin. They can't get him to wake up and he's breathing...He's not doing too well." Dawn took a moment to breathe. "The last thing he said was to talk to you about someone called Janet?"

Cassandra was wide eyed with concern, but just nodded. "That's my adopted mom. She's the head doctor at the base. If there's anything wrong with Jon she'll know."

They arrived at the nurse's office and skidded to a halt at the sight of Jon struggling to breathe on the bed, the nurse bent over him fitting him with oxygen.

"Cassandra Fraiser? Your mom is down as Jon's emergency contact. Use the phone in there and let her know that we have an ambulance on the way."

Cassandra nodded stiffly and dumped her bag by the desk and took up the phone.

Dawn stood in the doorway and watched. She wasn't sure what else to do. She had seen plenty of people hurt, even dead after the fight with the First, but right now she couldn't help thinking about her mom. It just seemed so unfair. When there were so many things out there trying to kill them why did their own bodies have to attack them too? Couldn't they ever just have a normal life? Or was this normal? Was everyone just doomed to suffer?

Cassandra spoke to her mom, and relayed information to the nurse who did technical stuff over Jon, who looked just the same. The paramedics turned up and Dawn stood off to one side, forgotten. Neil drifted up to her side.

"Someone should go with him," he said quietly.

Dawn nodded. "We don't leave anyone on their own. Cassie will go with him now, but we'll go to the hospital later and keep him company."

Neil looked at the floor. "What if they take him to the base?"

Dawn narrowed her eyes. "Then they'll find a really pissed off werewolf on their doorstep until they let us in to see him."

Neil seemed to take strength from that as they watched Jon get loaded into the ambulance. Dawn was glad she could give him that much: she just wished there was anything else she could do.

She turned to Neil suddenly. "I'm skipping the rest of the day. Can you cover for me? Tell everyone I was too upset or something?"

He looked confused, but nodded. "Sure. Where are you going?"

Dawn took a fortifying breath. "Hopefully to get someone who can help."

----x----

"Willow!"

"I'm sorry Dawnie, but I can't do anything from here and I can't leave. We're in the middle of a big bad-"

"You're always in the middle of some big bad," Dawn whined. She hated the way she sounded, but couldn't help it. "Jon's really sick-"

"I'm sorry Dawnie, I really am, but if it's his time there's nothing I can do. If it's not his time the doctors can help him just as well as I can."

"You think they know how to fix an alien made clone?"

"I'm sorry-" There was a crash on the other end. "Gotta go Dawnie! Everything's fine but - gotta go!"

So much for that idea.

----x----

Dawn hated hospitals. She had heard that everyone hated them, but that didn't make her hate them less. She had sat next to too many friends and family in crisp white beds: her mom, Xander, Tara, just about every potential slayer that made it after the vineyard. But that was why they had the rule: no one was left alone. Sure part of it was to make sure that evils didn't come and finish off the vulnerable ones, but a lot of it was that hospitals sucked and no one should be left alone in one when they were hurting.

Dawn took a deep breath before she opened the door to Jon's room. He was hooked up to all kinds of wires and things, she had been prepared for that, but it still stole the breath she had just taken. She was glad to see Cassie with him, and guessed that the petite brunette in the lab coat giving orders to the nurses while she kept one hand on Cassie's shoulder, was Janet Fraiser. She made Dawn feel better just watching her: she seemed in total control, as if he'd be just fine if they did what she said. She waited till the nurses were done with whatever they were doing before coming all the way into the room. Janet smile gently at her.

"You must be Dawn. Thanks for looking after Jon and Cassie."

Dawn tried to the return the smile, but found her eyes drawn to Jon's still form. "Wish I could have done a bit better."

Janet met her eyes with kind determination. "There's nothing anyone could have done. You know about where Jon comes from?" Dawn nodded. "When he was first created the same thing happened. It's a fault in the procedure: we thought it was fixed, but I guess not."

"Can you fix it?"

Janet shook her head, but looked hopeful nonetheless. "We don't have the technology, but we're trying to get hold of the ones that do."

Dawn nodded and pulled over a chair to the bedside. Janet looked surprised.

"You're staying?"

Dawn thought of leaving: of just walking out and leaving Jon there and shivered. "Habit." She said but she knew that wasn't true.

When she had first met Jon she had liked him: he had seemed so cool and confident, but still not afraid to show he was smart. Then she'd thought he was a Guld, but she had still hoped that once the Guld was gone they could hang out. Of course then "the Colonel" had surfaced and she couldn't stand him. He had taken over her mission, ordered everyone around and acted like he knew everything, when he obviously didn't. Besides it was creepy that he was, like, fifty or something, but looked seventeen and was really only a year old. Sure, Dawn herself was technically only a few years old, but at least her memories matched how old she looked. Jon had had a son of his own! Well...Technically Jon hadn't been alive then, but he remembered having a son. The way Cassie talked about Jack he was like a father to her and Jon even acted that way sometimes.

Still, looking down at him in the hospital bed, Dawn couldn't help but see Jon, not Jack, not some clone or some alien. It was just like living with Oz or Spike, but at least Jon was unlikely to turn evil: unless acting like an army idiot counted as evil.

Sorry, airforce. He'd be cranky if she got them mixed up.

She wanted him to be cranky at her. Anything: just not in this hospital bed surrounded by increasingly worried looking staff. His hand was limp and clammy in hers and looked kind of grey. It was getting late. Neil had visited for a while, but he had Cassie had both left. She had called Oz to let him know what was going on, but hadn't been surprised he hadn't come to visit. Oz still got kind of twitchy around medical stuff since the Initiative. Janet was around somewhere, but there weren't even as many staff around as there had been. Dawn didn't like to think how serious Jon's condition must be for them to have allowed her to stay. She yawned and fought to keep her eyes open. She wouldn't be able to stand it if he died while she was asleep.

She awoke to the sounded of booted feet.

"Huh."

She turned at the voice, rubbing her eyes. An older man stood in the doorway, salt and pepper hair, and the straight posture of career military. Attractive in a George Clooney sort of way. Rugged.

"Who're you?" She asked.

He stepped into the room with a gait that was clearly not military. "Jack O'Neill. I'm Jon's uncle."

Dawn looked at him again, her brain still fogged with sleep. "You're the original huh? You don't look much like him."

Jack smiled at that. "Well in about forty years he's going to look exactly like me. Lucky bastard. You must be Dawn: it's good to finally meet you. Jon's told me...Almost nothing actually. We're not exactly close."

Dawn snorted. "'Not close', that's funny." She turned back to Jon. He looked worse if that was possible. She squeezed his hand, but there was no response. "Are you here to help him?"

Jack moved to stand next to her. "No. Sorry. We're trying to get hold of the people who can, but-"

There was a strange metallic sound and a flash of light and suddenly Dawn found herself surrounded by tiny grey people...In a big metal room...With stars outside the window.

Oh Andrew was going to be so jealous!

"Thor! Buddy! What do you think you're doing?"

The little grey things gently released her hand from Jon's and started to wheel him away on his hospital bed. Dawn was about to protest, but thought better of it. Jon had been made by aliens, these were clearly aliens and Jack seemed to be friends with them. Good bet that they were going to help.

One of the aliens bowed his head in Jack's direction. "Our apologies O'Neill, we are aware that your species does not choose to share the same knowledge with all of its people, however we deemed it necessary. Your clone needs urgent medical attention and as we could not beam him aboard while the female was in contact with him we deemed it prudent to bring her as well. I apologise if this has caused any problems."

Jack rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture that was all too familiar to Dawn. "It could have been worse I suppose." He swept a hand in Dawn's direction. "Dawn, meet Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet. Thor, meet Dawn Summers."

"Pleased to meet you," Dawn said, putting on her 'greeting the friendly demon' face, while Thor simply inclined his head in her direction. "Is that Thor like the Norse god?"

"The same." There was a pause. "May I ask you a question?"

Dawn glanced at Jack, but he was no help. "Uh, sure."

"When I was attempting to transport you aboard there were a number of unusual readings in your energy signature, not consistent wth human biology. I would be most intrigued to hear what caused them as I have not come across such readings before."

Stupid monks and their stupid key! Dawn looked back and forth between Jack and Thor for a moment, before breathing out a sigh. There was no way she was going to get out of this. She recognised that look on Jack's face: it was the same one Jon got when he was playing the Colonel card.

She sighed. "I'm completely human. Well, mostly. You see there were these monks who were trying to hide a key made out of energy from a hell goddess named Glory, really skanky, anyway they hid this energy as loads of different things but Glory always found it. Eventually the monks all got killed off, but the last few knew they needed someone else to protect the Key to make sure Glory didn't get it. She needed it to open up this hell dimension, probably way worse than the world without shrimp, but anyway my sister is the Slayer, I don't know if you know what that is, but it basically means she protects people from evil things for a living. So yeah, they decided the Slayer would be the perfect protector for the key, but it would have to be something she cared about or she wouldn't look after it properly, which is true 'cause Buffy sucks at looking after stuff. All her things end up broken and normally covered in demon blood. So they took a bit of her blood and mixed it with the key and messed with everyone's memories and here I am."

Thor blinked big black eyes.

"I am not sure I understand."

Dawn sighed. "I was created from metaphysical energy by monks. I'm completely human in every way, you know, biologically and stuff, and have memories of a normal human life, but occasionally the energy I was made from makes things a bit different."

Thor nodded slowly. "Thank you. I think I begin to understand. If you would allow, I would very much like to take some readings while you are here. I have not encountered this 'metaphysical' energy before."

Dawn shrugged. They were helping Jon after all, the least she could do was give them a few scans to ponder over. "Sure, ok."

Thor gestured to a circle of light on the floor. "If you would step here it will only take a moment."

Dawn did as she was asked and wasn't surprised when Jack came closer to talk to her.

"'Metaphysical energy'?"

"Yep."

He put his hands in his pockets, trying to act casual, but Dawn wasn't fooled. Jon had done the same thing when he'd agreed to go out with her. It was kind of eerie how similar they were. Jon was lucky though: even though he was old, Jack was pretty hot. She could almost imagine what it would be like to grow older with Jon when she saw Jack...

"Sounds like you're not so different from mini me. Does he know?"

She shook her head. Most of the time she could forget about what she was and preferred not to think about it and definitely not tell anyone. She felt like enough of a freak as it was with the life she led without having people know she was actually a little ball of green energy. But maybe Jon wouldn't be so bad...She'd never known anyone who might actually have a chance of understanding what she was.

"Hey campers what's up?"

Dawn felt her heart race as Jon swaggered in, looking as healthy as ever.

"Mini me!" Jack said, "All fixed up?"

"Just needed my 1000 mile tune up. Thor, how you doing buddy?"

Thor inclined his head. "I am most well O'Neill. I apologise that this was necessary. I have been informed that all defects in your genetic code have now been fixed. This should not happen again."

"Yeah, well, we thought I was fixed last time. Any chance I can get you guys on speed dial in case there's another bug in my code?"

Thor blinked, but instead of answering simply went back to his instruments. Jack and Jon rolled their eyes in identical expressions making Dawn giggle.

Jon looked at his older self pointedly. "What was it you said last time we met about 'classified'?"

Jack put his hands up. "Hey this was Thor's idea."

Jon looked Dawn over and frowned. "What are you doing on the scanner? Is everything ok?"

Dawn shared a look with Jack. Jack nodded slightly and she knew Jon would understand. She took a deep breath.

"So there were these monks..."


End file.
